Sleeping Giant
by CodeAires
Summary: Dipper & Mabel, now aged 16, run away from home after Dipper refuses to join the Pines family's Masonic order. While burrowing in an unknown forest, their irresponsibility awakens an ancient guardian of the order. Soon, the twins receive a prophecy that will change the direction of their young lives forever. Rated M for swearing, violence, and references to drug abuse. NO PINESCEST


**This is part of a larger series of stories that will be called Twin Infinities. This section is called The Ancestral Other Side.**

The soggy ground underneath was disrupted by the hurried pace of little boots. Two sentient beings, fraternal twins, ran like hell through the marsh on a damp, cold November night. Like a cat and a mouse caught up in a heated chase, they pressed forward into uncharted land, refusing to slow down or stop for anything, no matter how their feet might have been throbbing. No light, no direction, no goal in mind except for one twin's desire to just get as lost as possible, and the other twin's desire to make sure neither of them ever got lost again.

One twin's shoe lace snagged on a raised-up tree root during this chase. Down she tumbled, becoming covered in mud and loose grass. She screamed out, forcing the other twin to abruptly stop at his race for total oblivion. She, however, screamed not just out of pain and confusion, but out of desperation.

"Can't we just go back and deal with them?" Mabel yelled at her brother, the grit on her face melting off in the rain.

"You know what's going to happen. I don't want anything to do with it."

"Dipper, you're so fucking stubborn! Mom and Dad aren't going to kill you if you refuse to join the order! They know you're smart enough to find your own way in this world!"

Dipper turned around to face his twin sister for the first time since he ran away from the hotel lobby over an hour ago. His long brown hair had matted up into knots over the past few months; his face was covered in sparse hairs, as was his chest. He was not a little boy anymore, this he was all too aware of. Dipper Pines was two years away from being a legal adult, and two years away from being forced into an age-old rite that he recognized as little more than cooperative mind control. He had read all the books; he had heard all the stories. He knew what went on in those lodges. He knew about the things his late great uncle had sacrificed in order to appease the ancestral other side by which the Order was bound. Every male member of the Pines family had been obligated to serve the Order for over six hundred years, if not longer. There was a sordid history of rituals, of observances, of underhanded actions which Dipper's conscience could not allow himself to partake in.

Nine months earlier, shortly after the funeral of Stanford "Grunkle Stan" Pines, Dipper made the conscious decision to walk out of his life. He knew that his family would be returning home to Piedmont, California the following day, and all his father had talked to him about after the ceremony was how it was "his turn to bear the burden of being a Pines man". It was a burden that Dipper ardently refused to bear no matter how strongly his parents pressured him, so getting lost was the only thing he saw fit to do. He became a hermit of sorts, hiding out deep into the Oregon Vortex and living completely off of the land with no human contact. Being invisible to the outside world meant that he was ultimately safe. He had heard of other stories of runaways that successfully started new lives in obscurity, and Dipper saw himself as a practical and crafty young man, so why couldn't he do the same?

As for the Pines family, those same nine months had been a never-ending nightmare. A missing persons' report had been filed, and within days, his disappearance had become a national news story. Teachers, family, and friends feared that fifteen-year-old Maxwell "Dipper" Pines had been murdered by some kind of sick predator; while pundits and conspiracy theorists believed that his own family might have gotten rid of him because he "knew too much". All of the rumors and false accusations tore the communities of Piedmont and Gravity Falls, Oregon apart, the latter especially, as the small, sleepy tourist town became ground zero for crack pot detectives and moralists warning of America's deterioration. All the while, Dipper was sleeping in an abandoned cabin, killing and eating small animals for sustenance and hoping deep down that his twin, silly, curious Mabel, was handling everything at home with some shred of sanity.

Mabel, of course, didn't fair very well without the one person in the world that she loved and trusted more than anybody else. The twins had never been apart from one another for longer than a couple of days, and Mabel had grown very dependent on her intelligent, headstrong brother since childhood. In the months that Dipper was "missing", Mabel's personality and her habits had considerably changed for the worse. The once lively, frivolous geek that laughed in the face of darkness now only seemed to be content with making darkness her bedfellow. She had a fascination with witchcraft since she and Dipper began high school, but what had been just a curiosity about Wicca had evolved into a feeble devotion to black magick and the "dark arts" since Dipper went away. She had tried a number of spells over the months that she believed would give her clairvoyance, but all it did was make her feel even more alone.

Before long, Mabel, once an A student, was missing school for days at a time, and had very little interest in studies whenever she did show up. Along with her attitude and her drive for success, her personal hygiene also suffered greatly. Her long, brown hair now hung down to her thighs and was tangled up in knotted clumps and dyed a sort of burgundy shade, which was faded and bled into the wash of her greasy locks. She never showered, and classmates complained of her odor and dirty appearance. Mabel retreated from friends, preferring to spend most of her time in the family's attic, learning new spells and reciting mantras, but also experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs. At this time in her life, a tab of acid was all that was needed to keep Mabel Pines from curling up into a ball, tweaking out from the painful reality she had been subjected to.

Then one dreary November day, for reasons unknown, Dipper had shown up at the old Mystery (S)hack, the tourist trap where he and Mabel once worked with Grunkle Stan. The shack had been condemned and was marked for demolition, and during a survey of the property, a contractor noted seeing a "feral looking kid" living inside of the feeble structure and called the police. Just like that, national news outlets were buzzing about the "lost boy of Gravity Falls" being found alive and well. The next day, Mabel, along with the twins' mother and father, flew out to the small Oregon town to retrieve their lost brother and son. What they found was a shell of a boy. Dirty, yellowing teeth, and barely able to talk, living in the wilderness for nine months had left a brutal mark upon Dipper's mind and soul, rendering him an ineffective communicator, not to mention directionless. While indifferent to his parents, Dipper could barely believe what had happened to Mabel. He was shocked at how her previously healthy frame had turned wire-thin and sickly. He noticed a tattoo on her inner arm that was clearly done by an amateur, a sort of pentacle-shaped charm crudely placed in black ink. The sweet, bubbly sister he had always known only now looked dead out of her eyes, as if the lust for life had simply been snatched from her. Still, they were one another's mirror image. They had grown messy and weary of the world together, even if they had spent so much time apart. Twins are always able to change in synchronicity, no matter the circumstances.

Now, in this moment, staring at one another with a mixture of contempt and resentment, Dipper and Mabel were grounded in their own stubbornness. Dipper wasn't about to join his family's order, but Mabel wasn't about to let her brother run away again.

"Come ON, Dipper. Me, Mom, Dad, everybody has been worried sick about you for nine fucking months! You aren't just going to run away again! I swear to whatever God is up there that I will take my own life before I let you disappear again! You can't do this!"

Mabel's voice was cracking, a slight rasp in her tone beset by the cold. Her eyes might have been dead, but she still had a bite of determination about her, a forceful sense of what was right and wrong in the unfortunate world they were forced to live their lives within. Dipper refused to believe her words, however. He knew the truth. He knew way too much of the truth to ever believe those he once kept close to him ever again.

"For God's sakes, don't threaten to kill yourself" Dipper said with a frustrated grunt, "Like Mom and Dad would really give a shit if either of us died, anyway"

"Why do you keep talking like this? What is wrong with you?"

"You're actually that fucking blind? Mom and Dad had NEVER loved us! Why do you think they were always dumping us off on other relatives? Why do you think they made us live with Stan for three years? It was all conditioning. Everything we went through was some kind of test, and I don't think I passed it, and I actually never, ever fucking want to pass it at all. I am NOT going home. I'm never going home to them ever again"

"Then where are you going? Can you tell me that? So far, it looks like you just want to live like a rabid animal in the middle of nowhere until you're an old man. You can't run from your problems, Dipper! God, what happened to the brother that used to stand up for himself and face his fears?"

"Yeah, and what the hell happened to the sister that was so lost in la-la land all the time that she never really paid attention to how severe our problems were becoming the longer we stayed in this piece of shit town? What happened to the dork that just made stupid sweaters and read cheesy romance novels, huh? What happened to that sister? She got replaced by some wannabe witch with no fucking sense of self"

"How do you even know what I am anymore? YOU'RE NEVER AROUND!"

With that, Mabel shoved her brother into a tree, and Dipper shoved her back. The two wound up fighting on the soggy ground beneath them, hitting one another so hard that they managed to draw blood. Months of anger, disappointment, fear, and festering adolescent hormones spilled out upon the mud and dead leaves. A sister's hurt at her brother running away from his responsibilities and facing reality was matched by a brother's resentment of his sister losing the unique qualities that made her so invaluable of a person. They were technically alive, but as they duked it out on this miserable night, they both suddenly felt so robotic in their movements. After a minute, neither of them was even sure why they were screaming or fighting anymore. They had never fought like this before Dipper disappeared, not even once.

The punches slowed, and Mabel was the first to tire out. She collapsed onto the ground, crying and screaming out the rest of her anger. Dipper, strangely, found himself crying as well. He moved towards his sister and lifted her up, and they held each other tightly, sobbing throughout.

"I'm…look, I had to do what I had to do, but I should have told you where I was going. It's just…you can't keep a secret ever, and I knew you'd tell Mom and Dad, so I just left"

"I thought you were dead, Dipper! Everyone did! You ruined my life and hurt so many other people around Gravity Falls and back home. How could you be so thoughtless?"

"I know, I know. I can't change the past, though. This is just how it happened, and there's no use in thinking about it anymore. All I know is that I want nothing to do with the Pines family ever again, except for you. You're the only one that gets me"

"Yeah, like you always got me when Dad thought I was an embarrassment. I still don't want you to go away"

"Why…"

Dipper paused for a moment, noticing the blood that was running from the side of his mouth. To be so waifish in appearance, Mabel could pack one hell of a punch. He wiped the blood away and felt of his face. His nose and his lip were busted. Mabel's jaw was bruising and she also bled from her nose, but not nearly as much as Dipper was. It seemed that after all this time; Mabel had in fact become the Alpha Twin after all.

"Why don't you just run away with me?" Dipper finally managed to ask, "We work better as a team, and you know this. We can stay at the shack I found near the abandoned silver mine outside of Gold Hill. We can at least hide out there until we're eighteen, then we can just change our names and start over. We'll be whatever we want to be. Think about it"

"Can we go to a doctor first? Seriously, I kind of fucked you up" Mabel said, her eyes darting to Dipper's lip.

"Yeah…yeah you did. I deserved it though"

"Damn right you deserved it"

"I'm not going back into town, no way. I'll just tend to the injuries myself. I can take the pain. Can you?"

Mabel stood there, her clothes filthy and soaking wet, and blood still running in small dribbles from her nose. She felt like just calling their parents and going home, but she couldn't let Dipper get away from her. With a reluctant sigh, she brushed the blood away from her face with the bulky sleeve of her sweater.

"Yeah, I can take it"

For the next two days, Dipper and Mabel wandered aimlessly through the dense forest; trying to find the cabin that Dipper had called home during the time he was gone. It had been a fruitless search, as Dipper never really knew how to travel to and from the cabin by a set path. It had continued to rain for most of this time, causing the twins to take shelter in a nearby cave. They kept from going hungry by eating berries and killing small animals for meat, often resorting to eating it raw, which Mabel found disgusting. By the third night, while holed up in their cave during a thunderstorm, Mabel was showing signs of annoyance and exhaustion. She had kept her cell phone in the pocket of her jeans, and on this night, she pulled it out to look at some old photos taken over the months.

"Mabel, don't even think about calling Mom. There's no signal out here anyway", Dipper said in frustration while skinning a small rodent.

"Come over here" Mabel called to her brother, still looking at the screen, "Do you remember this?"

Dipper looked at the photo, feeling a mixture of nostalgia and sadness. It was taken the last summer that the Mystery Shack was in business, less than a year before Grunkle Stan passed away from liver failure. Dipper and Mabel, both younger and happier, stood around a captured jackalope, each holding a tusk from the grotesque creature and grinning widely. Other pictures from this time were of their old friend Soos, who still lived around town and was reportedly working for a mechanic. Another photo was of Dipper's former crush Wendy, made during a day she visited her old place of employment. She had left Gravity Falls for college by that time and had gotten engaged to a wealthy internet entrepreneur.

"I miss her still sometimes," Dipper said with a slight lament in his voice, "Guess you never really get over first loves"

"She's married and got a kid now" Mabel added, "I'm just happy she's with a good guy and not some junkie shitwad like Robbie"

"What happened to Robbie anyway? Not that I really care"

"I heard from Soos that he's in jail for selling drugs. He also beat up another one of his girlfriends. Total smack addict"

"Serves that bastard right" Dipper said with a slight bit of aggression attached to his words.

The last photo in the series was of the whole staff on the Mystery Shack's last day in business, dated January 14th of that year. A frail but still prideful Stan stood in the middle, with Mabel and Dipper on either side, Mabel's then-boyfriend who took Wendy's old job, Soos, and of course, Mabel's beloved pet pig Waddles.

"Did you know that Mom sold Waddles to a farm because she thought I was too strung out to take care of him?" Mabel asked

"What? Seriously?"

"Yeah. It was during a night when I had dropped acid. I was trying out this spell and Waddles was on the other end of the room. I was so high I didn't even notice he was there. Something I did in the spell spooked him and he started running all around the attic. He knocked over some candles I had set up around me and the hot wax burned his skin. It almost set the attic on fire, too. After that, Mom took him away from me. I mean, I know I'm fucked up, but I fucking loved that pig. That was my baby. She took that from me. I guess it's for the better, but…damn it, I miss Waddles so bad sometimes"

"God, Mabel…you need to stop doing that"

"Doing what?"

"Drugs. I mean, you just called Robbie a junkie but you're abusing hallucinogens"

"I don't drop acid all the time; just…I just do it when I need to forget. I've had to forget a lot of stuff this past year"

A silence followed for a few minutes. Mabel's drug use was a serious issue, and Dipper couldn't believe that she didn't really take it that seriously. Dipper had never done a drug before in his life, and had only drunk alcohol a couple of times, whereas Mabel had started experimenting with substances before he even ran away. There were nights that she would come back to the Mystery shack reeking of beer and cigarettes, but always said that it was just from being around one of her friends' "hobo uncles". Of course, Dipper knew that this was a complete lie.

Then there was Wendy. He still couldn't wrap his head around her being married and having a child of her own. Just a few short years ago, she was the age that Dipper currently was, being a normal, happy teenager with little cares. Now she seemed so much older. She wasn't a girl anymore; she was a mother and a wife. It made the secret he shared with her seem even more bittersweet.

"You said that Wendy has a kid now?" Dipper asked

"Yeah. I think she had a son. I haven't seen her in ages but I found out about it through social media"

"God…she's just nineteen. People shouldn't be having babies at nineteen"

"Mom had us when she was like twenty-two, Dipper. So what?"

"It's just…"

"What, the dream girl from your youth was destroyed?" Mabel asked with a lingering smirk.

"Mabel, do you remember that weekend Wendy came back to Gravity Falls last summer?"

"Yeah. That was the last time we saw her"

"Right…well, while you were off with friends, I hung out with Wendy back at the shack for a while. We were chilling on the sofa watching some stupid game show, when she asked me if Grunkle Stan was gone. I told her yes…she turned off the TV and said straight up, 'Look Dipper, I know you've had a huge thing for me all this time. I'm getting married next month, and you might not see me again for a long time, so I'm going to give you something you've wanted since forever'"

"Wait…what?"

Suddenly, Mabel figured out what Dipper was talking about. Her eyes grew huge with shock, but then she just burst into laughter.

"Oh my god, Dipper! Right there on the sofa?"

"No, we went up to the bedroom"

"Please tell me it was in your bed and not mine! Oh my…oh god! I can't!"

"Yes, it was my bed. It was really sweet too. Nothing gross or awkward or weird, really"

"Hey, she did get around a lot so I guess she knew what she was doing. Good for you! But still…oh my goooodddddddddddd"

Dipper's face turned a bright shade of red and he hid under his jacket.

"Stop making fun of me! It was the best first time I could have ever hoped for"

Mabel continued to laugh, and Dipper realized that stopping her from laughing would be one of the most selfish things he could do. She had been so heartbroken and miserable ever since he ran away, that to know that something could still make her giggle like she used to filled Dipper with a strange sense of hope. He looked at the scars on her arms and that same crooked failure of a tattoo, her poorly dyed hair and her sickly skin tone. She was putting herself through so much abuse and falling down a rabbit hole of occult mysticism that Dipper himself had been trying to escape. She was tampering with things that she wasn't prepared to handle the outcomes of, and she was obviously losing her grip on reality, but she could still laugh like a little girl at ridiculous things. Maybe it wasn't too late for her. Maybe Mabel could regain some element of her happiness and innocence if Dipper just took care of her.

Dipper tried to laugh along, just to show that he wasn't ashamed or disapproving of her finding the situation funny.

"Yep, your bookworm of a dork brother had sex! Go me!"

"Oh god Dipper, STOP! I can't! With Wendy! Oh my god! Just oh my god!"

"Yep, I got the girl I'd been dreaming of! How many other kids can say that though?"

"You know, I'm really…" Mabel started before breaking out into more chuckles, "I'm really proud of you, Dipper. You knew what you wanted, and you fucking got it. You wanna know a secret? One time way back, Candy and Grenda made a bet about which one of us was going to get laid first, me or you. God, Grenda owes Candy so much money now"

"What? Ahhh god damn, Mabel! Seriously?"

By this time, both twins were hysterically laughing, their backs squirming on the cold cave floor. Unbeknownst to them, however, was that their hearty laughter had awakened another living creature deep within the bowels of the cave. Two amber-colored eyes snapped open, and a frustrated grunt emanated from its throat, echoing through the cave's walls.

"Whoa, shit…did you hear that?" Dipper said, looking up curiously.

"Yeah. Probably a rock fell or something. It's a cave, after all"

"No, it sounded like a growl"

"Maybe some creepy shape-shifting wolf lives here and we woke him up! Awoooooo!" Mabel howled, busting out into laughter again.

Just then, two more loud grunts echoed out, and strong vibrations were made on the cave's floor. Less than a minute later, Dipper and Mabel looked up to see those angry, amber-colored eyes glowing in front of them. Those eyes also happened to be attached to, what else, a giant shape-shifting wolf.

"Oh god!" Mabel screamed in shock, "I was just kidding! What the hell?"

"Umm, hey there," Dipper said, thinking of a way to negotiate with the creature, "Uhh, we didn't know this was your cave, Sir. If you'd like us to leave now, we totally can"

Without warning, the wolf creature lifted the twins up. A third eye emerged, brightly glowing a blue hue, with a strange gravitational hold that left Mabel and Dipper suspended in mid-air. Both were too terrified to talk, so they stared nervously at the creature, hoping that their lives would be spared.

"Pines", the creature uttered, "You have the blood of the Pines family. I can sense it"

"W…what are you talking about?" Dipper stuttered out.

"You dare try to run away from your responsibilities? You are a Pines man. You know far too much, and by default, so does your sister here. There is no escape from the family, except by death. Do you realize this?"

"Who are you and what the fuck are you even talking about?" Dipper screamed.

"The things that you know about the cosmos, the afterlife, the infinite space outside of the confines of this world, are dangerous. Every Pines man has known about these things for hundreds of years. An ancestor of yours, Cyril Pines, struck a deal with my maker for a thousand generations of unquestioned servitude. Stanford, his direct descendant, was a complete fool and never had children, so the burden of being a Pines man transferred to your father, and then over to you, Maxwell. You and your sister are part of the 420th generation. That is a long way from 1,000. There is simply no escape from serving this order"

"Haha…420" Mabel laughed nervously

"Shut up, you stupid little bitch!" The creature bellowed, emitting a spell that paralyzed Mabel's lower jaw, "Women are not to speak directly to agents of the order"

"Don't treat her like that!" Dipper yelled back.

"I can treat her any way that I see fit! Women are worthless in the grand scheme of the order" The creature bellowed. Dipper watched in horror as the creature twisted Mabel's right leg until it snapped, leaving blood and bones exposed. Mabel couldn't even scream in pain, but she did begin to cry"

"Please! Don't hurt my sister! What do I have to do to make you stop?" Dipper pleaded

"What you can do, Maxwell, is go home to your parents. Abide by their rules and do exactly as they tell you to do. Bear the burden"

"No! I won't do it!" Dipper screamed out, "I don't give two flying FUCKS what my family does, I am not like them! I am my own man! I will be my own man at any cost!"

The creature laughed and forced a stalagmite through Mabel's heart. She bled out onto the cave floor, her skin turning white.

"Even if it meant losing your precious sister?"

"I. Am. My. Own. MAN!" Dipper screamed, his words eerily echoing through the cave walls, "I am NOT Cyril. I am NOT Stanford, I am NOT my father! I am Maxwell Alexander Pines, and my sister is Mabel Dolores Pines! We are individuals, but we are also two halves of a whole! You kill her, you kill me! We are eternally equals and opposites. We are infinite!"

Dipper suddenly stopped in shock of the words that came out of his own mouth. There he was, watching his own sister die in front of him, and he was still defiant, refusing to subject himself to something he didn't believe in. Dipper also couldn't understand exactly what he even meant by him and his sister being infinite. They obviously had an end, and judging from the blood and pus caked around Mabel's mouth, she may have already met hers.

"My god, what am I even saying?" Dipper blurted.

In the blink of an eye, the cave around them began to disintegrate. Dipper and Mabel fell to the ground, and were knocked out cold.


End file.
